June 30, 2006 (Lowe's Motor Speedway)
July 21, 2006 (United States)
Monster House is a 2006 American animated supernatural horror comedy film directed by Gil Kenan in his directorial debut, from a screenplay written by Pamela Pettler and the writing team of Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab. The plot revolves around a neighborhood being terrorized by a sentient haunted house during Halloween. The film features the voices of Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke, Steve Buscemi, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Nick Cannon, Jason Lee, Fred Willard, Jon Heder, Catherine O'Hara, and Kathleen Turner.
Produced by Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, and executive producers Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, the human characters were animated using motion-capture animation, which was previously utilized in Zemeckis' The Polar Express (2004). It was also Sony's first computer-animated film produced by Sony Pictures Imageworks and Relativity's first animated film.
Monster House was released theatrically by Sony Pictures Releasing on July 21, 2006. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $142 million worldwide against a $75 million budget. It received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, but lost to Happy Feet and Cars, respectively.
Storyline[]
On October 30, 1983, one day before Halloween, 12-year-old DJ Walters witnesses elderly Horace Nebbercracker stealing a little girl's tricycle and scaring her away from his house. DJ has documented many similar incidents at the Nebbercracker house, which is across the street from his own. The same day, DJ's parents leave for a convention, placing him in the care of teenage babysitter Elizabeth (Zee). Later, DJ's friend Chowder loses a basketball in Nebbercracker's lawn; the boys try to retrieve it, but Nebbercracker stops them. He appears to suffer a heart attack and is taken away by an ambulance; everyone assumes he is dead.
Zee's inebriated boyfriend Bones arrives. He reveals that, many years ago, Nebbercracker stole his kite. Bones also relates rumors that Nebbercracker ate his wife. After Zee throws him out, Bones notices his kite on Nebbercracker's porch, tries to retrieve it, and is devoured by the house. DJ and Chowder are attacked by the house when they investigate; the next day is Halloween. They save young Jenny Bennett, who is selling Halloween candy, from being eaten by the house. Jenny calls police officers Landers and Lister, but the house stays quiet when the officers arrive, and they dismiss the report.
The trio consults supernatural expert Reginald "Skull" Skulinski, who speculates the house must be a rare monster created by the merging of a human ghost and a man-made object, only unbound when its heart is destroyed. Concluding Nebbercracker has died and possessed the house, the children construct a dummy child, filling it with cough syrup they stole from Chowder's parents' pharmacy. They offer the dummy to the house to eat, hoping to put the house to sleep so they can find its "heart". Landers and Lister arrive and discover the stolen medicine; as they try to arrest the children, the house eats them, the children, and the squad car. Separated from the officers, who seem to have vanished, the children explore the sleeping house's basement. They find all the stolen toys, and a shrine to Nebbercracker's wife, Constance the Giantess, whose skeleton is encased in cement. The house awakens and attacks them, but they trigger its gag reflex by grabbing its uvula equivalent (the chandelier), forcing it to vomit them outside.
Nebbercracker returns from the hospital alive, and reveals that Constance is the ghost possessing the house. When he fell in love with her, she was an unwilling participant in a circus freak show due to her obesity, living in a cage and tormented by people throwing things at her. He helped her escape and married her. On Halloween, during the house's construction, some children threw eggs at Constance; tormented and enraged, she grabbed an axe. Nebbercracker tried to stop her, only to be knocked out as she stumbled and fell into the unfinished basement to her death, her body accidentally being coated in cement. Nebbercracker finished the house in Constance's memory, but her vengeful ghost merged with it, and she became the Monster House. For the next 45 years, Nebbercracker assumed a hostile demeanor to protect innocent people from her.
DJ convinces Nebbercracker that he needs to let Constance go. Overhearing this, Constance becomes enraged, using two trees to lift herself from her foundation and chase the children and Nebbercracker off. Nebbercracker tries to comfort Constance, and explains everything is for the best, but when she sees he intends to blow her up with dynamite, she attacks him. Chowder uses an excavator to attack Constance and lure her into a pit in a construction site; she falls, but changes shape instead of dying. Jenny lights the dynamite, and DJ swings out on a crane's hook with it, dropping it into the chimney and destroying the house. Finally freed, Constance's ghost briefly reunites with her husband before ascending to the afterlife. Nebbercracker thanks the three children for freeing him and Constance from their suffering.
That night, the trio and Nebbercracker gather at the house's still-intact basement, returning all the confiscated items to Trick or Treaters. After everyone leaves, Bones emerges from the basement, unharmed, carrying his kite. During the credits, Bones discovers Zee is now dating Skull. Meanwhile, Landers, Lister and a dog that was devoured by the house earlier escape alive.